Envy
by Orangen
Summary: Oneshot. Marlin likes Celia. Celia likes Jack... Or does she?


_Disclaimer_: Unfortunately, I don't own the Harvest Moon copyrights. Just copies of AWL and AnWL.

_Author's Note_: Uh, yeah, Marlin/Celia is pretty obvious in both games…

**Envy**

Marlin was annoyed, to put it simply.

One could argue that being moody was Marlin's general state of existence. And, in fact, his own sister readily concurred with this statement.

The situation at hand, however, was not so simple, and in reality, Marlin was a bit more than annoyed. In three words: He was jealous.

Jealous of who? Jealous of Jack, that's who.

And what had induced Marlin's jealousy towards the other farmer? It was no one other than Celia.

Celia, his sister's assistant, had been helping—and _living_—with Vesta and Marlin for the past few years. The petite brunette always smiled and had something nice to say to everyone. Needless to say, living in such close proximity to someone so cheerful was causing Marlin to feel, well, strange.

Vesta said that she just thought Marlin was moping less lately. Marlin, however, knew that she was teasing him. Worst of all, he knew that she knew something about the situation that he _didn't_ know.

If that made sense.

Point being that ever since Marlin had started to feel, well, strange around Celia, seeing her with Jack made him angry.

And, at the moment, she was indeed with Jack. The brown-haired man had paid the farm a visit to stock up on watermelon seeds, and Celia had been the first to offer to get him a few packets of them.

Marlin felt his eye twitch. Celia had just emerged from the storage building with Jack's watermelon seeds. As he paid her, Jack held Celia's hand and said something that made her giggle.

Make that his eye _and_ eyebrow.

Vesta, who had been working on planting a few watermelons herself, decided to worsen the situation. She smirked up at Marlin and said, "Aren't they cute?"

_She's provoking you. IGNORE, IGNORE, IGNORE—_

And then Jack rode away on his horse, waving merrily, to which Celia waved back shyly.

Needless to say, events like this made Marlin very… uncomfortable. And after this, he would proceed to wonder _why_ he was upset. Today was no exception.

Vesta moved on to scattering tomato seeds, still grinning. Marlin scowled. Why couldn't he have a normal sister, who wouldn't try to hook Celia up with absolutely everyone? Why didn't she think about _him_ every once in a while?

Wait a minute! Maybe that was why he felt weird! It was Vesta's fault!

…But somehow, that logic seemed wrong.

"Um, Marlin, are you all right? You've been standing there against the fence for a while…"

Oh boy. Just what he needed. He was now staring into Celia's concerned face. He tried to convince himself that the sudden rush of heat to his face was due to the temperature.

"I'm fine," he grunted.

Why couldn't he just explain things to her?

Oh yeah. Because he didn't want to upset her.

"Are you sure? Your face is all red…"

Celia reached out to touch his arm, and Marlin flinched instinctively. His sudden movement caused Celia to trip, and before Marlin knew what he was doing, he'd reached out to break her fall.

And all of a sudden, he had Celia's face in his chest and Vesta's laughter in his ears.

"Well, why didn't ya just tell'er?" Vesta roared from across the field.

"Sh-shut up!" Marlin shouted back. "It's not what it looks like!"

"Tell me what, Marlin?" Celia asked innocently.

Or rather, she _tried_ to ask. Seeing how her face was still pressed into his shirt, her voice was muffled, and it came out a bit more like, "Ell e wuh, Ar'in?"

"Oh, uh, sorry," Marlin muttered, slowly letting go of her. "I'll just be, uh, going now…"

"He's got a crush on ya, darlin'!"

Marlin smacked his forehead. Vesta was finally considering his feelings, and she was doing so in the worst possible way.

"Y-you do?" Celia blushed.

"N—what about Ja—" Marlin feebly tried to protest, having already faced too much humiliation for one day.

"Jack likes _Muffy_, silly!" Celia giggled.

Marlin blinked. Okay, so he'd been jealous over nothing. But he still didn't know why he felt strange around Celia…

"But, uh… what about… you?"

"I like _you_, Marlin!"

Celia promptly threw her arms around Marlin's waist. After the shock wore off, Marlin slowly returned the hug. Now he realized it:

"I like you too, Celia."

"Aw, how precious!"

…Stupid Vesta.


End file.
